rtune. How to bring it, by some brave, free
lift, up to the same height was the idea with which, behind and beneath
everything, he was restlessly occupied, and in the exploration of which,
as in that of the sun-chequered greenwood of romance, his spirit thus,
at the opening of a vista, met hers. They were already, from that
moment, so hand-in-hand in the place that he found himself making use,
five minutes later, of exactly the same tone as Charlotte's for telling
Mrs. Assingham that he was likewise, in the matter of the return to
London, sorry for what mightn't be.

This had become, of a sudden, the simplest thing in the world--the
sense of which moreover seemed really to amount to a portent that he
should feel, forevermore, on the general head, conveniently at his ease
with her. He went in fact a step further than Charlotte--put the latter
forward as creating his necessity. She was staying over luncheon to
oblige their hostess--as a consequence of which he must also stay to see
her decently home. He must deliver her safe and sound, he felt, in Eaton
Square. Regret as he might, too, the difference made by this obligation,
he frankly didn't mind, inasmuch as, over and above the pleasure itself,
his scruple would certainly gratify both Mr. Verver and Maggie.
They never yet had absolutely and entirely learned, he even found
deliberation to intimate, how little he really neglected the first--as
it seemed nowadays quite to have become--of his domestic duties:
therefore he still constantly felt how little he must remit his effort
to make them remark it. To which he added with equal lucidity that
they would return in time for dinner, and if he didn't, as a last word,
subjoin that it would be "lovely" of Fanny to find, on her own return,
a moment to go to Eaton Square and report them as struggling bravely on,
this was not because the impulse, down to the very name for the amiable
act, altogether failed to rise. His inward assurance, his general plan,
had at moments, where she was concerned, its drops of continuity, and
nothing would less have pleased him than that she should suspect in
him, however tempted, any element of conscious "cheek." But he was
always--that was really the upshot--cultivating thanklessly the
considerate and the delicate: it was a long lesson, this unlearning,
with people of English race, all the little superstitions that accompany
friendship. Mrs. Assingham herself was the first to say that she would
unf